I have given up on the U.S. Intelligence Community; it simply reflects the fact that the U.S. Federal Government and the Political System that it is based on are devoid of both common sense and integrity at all levels.
The coruption has undermined our entire National Security Establishment. Clapper's departure (if valid) is just another symptom. I give you an excerpt replayed in various sources on a leak published by Wkileaks from their penetration of Stratfor:
“Apparently the entities charged with keeping us safe now require full-blown lessons from the private sector in how to do their jobs. According to leaked email written by Stratfor's CEO, George Friedman: ‘We have also been asked to help the United States Marine Corps and other government intelligence organizations to teach them how Stratfor does what it does, and train them in becoming government Stratfors. We are beginning this project by preparing a three-year forecast for the Commandant of the Corps. This is a double honor for us.'” Read it and weep.
Surprise, surprise…..such a disaster it could be a blessing in disguise…his replacement? General Flynn, the individual who said intel
in Afghanistan was a failure…..and it is.
Or, then again, he may not. At this stage, all is rumor. So far, we've got three people with good intelligence connections saying Clapper is likely on the way out. We've got one former senior intelligence saying it is not likely.
But as so often with the intelligence community, rumors possess value because they indicate perception as much as fact. There may be senior Obama administration officials who would like to see Clapper gone. He is a career military man heading a “civilian” intelligence community and there's another such fish over at CIA named Petraeus. And we all know how they treated retired Adm. Dennis Blair.
General James Clapper
Also, two of the sources for the rumor may have a strong institutional interest in Clapper's departure. But we can't say more for fear of blowing their cover.
A source with excellent intelligence community access had a specific piece of information. “Clapper was told he is no longer valued….back in October. General Cartwright was offered the job but declined,” this source said in an email.
A former senior Pentagon intelligence official told us that Clapper has said “how much he values working for this President and this administration” and tells him that the administration has demonstrated “their respect for and understanding of the business of intelligence. I¹d be quite surprised to see Jim step down if either a re-elected Obama or newly elected successor asked him to stay on.”
This source also made a key point. The DNI job carries so few benefits and so many responsibilities and is so disliked or distrusted by so many in the intelligence community that, “few qualified people” would “even remotely yearn for the DNI position.” Given all that, this source said, “I think we should all hope that Jim hangs in there.”
Nothing drives voter sentiment like the price of gasoline, which is already up nearly 30 cents from the start of the year and hitting $4 in many places. The last time it topped $4 was 2008.
And nothing energizes Republicans like rising energy prices. House Speaker John Boehner is telling Republicans to take advantage of voters’ looming anger over rising prices at the pump. House Republicans have passed a bill to expand offshore drilling and pressure the White House into issuing a permit for the Keystone XL pipeline.
But the current surge in gas prices has almost nothing to do with energy policy. It doesn’t even have much to do with global supply and demand. It has most to do with America’s continuing failure to adequately regulate Wall Street.
Oil supplies aren’t being squeezed. Over 80 percent of America’s energy needs are now being satisfied by domestic supplies. In fact, we’re starting to become an energy exporter.
Iran is threatening to cut production in retaliation for sanctions imposed by the European Union and the United States. But Saudi Arabia’s increased production is more than enough to make up the difference.
Demand for oil isn’t rising in any event. Oil demand in the U.S. is down compared to last year at this time. The American economy is showing only the faintest signs of recovery. Meanwhile, global demand is still moderate. Europe’s debt crisis hasn’t gone away. China’s growth continues to slow.
Phi Beta Iota: Brother Reich offers only half the story. Speculators are indeed rampant, and KEYSTONE has nothing to do with US energy needs, only oil company desires to revive aging refineries a long way from Canada, knowing that they can externalize all the costs of wasted water flushing tar sands, and environmental damage along the way. What the learned former Secretary of Labor does not mention is that Goldman Sachs bet on high oil prices long before today, and rumor has it that Israel and Iran did also. he also fails to mention that the price of oil is not really rising, it is the dollar that is falling.
Attorney General Eric Holder on Monday explained why it's legal to murder people — not to execute prisoners convicted of capital crimes, not to shoot someone in self-defense, not to fight on a battlefield in a war that is somehow legalized, but to target and kill an individual sitting on his sofa, with no charges, no arrest, no trial, no approval from a court, no approval from a legislature, no approval from we the people, and in fact no sharing of information with any institutions that are not the president. Holder's speech approached his topic in a round about manner:
“Since this country’s earliest days, the American people have risen to this challenge – and all that it demands. But, as we have seen – and as President John F. Kennedy may have described best – ‘In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger.'”
Holder quotes that and then immediately rejects it, claiming that our generation too should act as if it is in such a moment, even if it isn't, a moment that Holder's position suggests may last forever:
“Half a century has passed since those words were spoken, but our nation today confronts grave national security threats that demand our constant attention and steadfast commitment. It is clear that, once again, we have reached an ‘hour of danger.'
“We are a nation at war. And, in this war, we face a nimble and determined enemy that cannot be underestimated.”
Last week I distributed a five part series on drones, specifically the MQ-9 Reaper. It was published at Time Magazine's Battleland blog. This last message on the series distributes each of the five parts and the entire paper as originally written for any who might be looking for a missed part or to read the paper as one piece. But also, I attempt here to raise some broader issues.
My paper addressed Reaper as a physical system, and I take a few shots at some of the more uninformed things that have been written about drones by some people who, had they looked more into the data, probably would have been a little less effusive about the “revolution in warfare” and expectation that drones should naturally replace manned aircraft for air combat roles in the foreseeable future.
My paper only scratched the surface of the implications of the burgeoning love affair of the US defense community with drones. Some of those issues have already been thoroughly discussed in the press: such as the use of unmanned systems to pursue air to ground combat roles in friendly, ambiguous and hostile countries as a “safe” way to pursue policy makers' objectives. The endnotes in the first part of the series referenced several excellent articles on this issue, or you might want to read Andrew Cockburn's more recent essay in the London Review of Books at http://www.lrb.co.uk/v34/n05/andrew-cockburn/drones-baby-drones.
Cybercrooks broke into NASA's computer systems 13 times last year gaining “full functional control” of important systems in the worse cases, according to the testimony before the US Congress by the space agency's inspector general.
Op-Ed by Giles Merritt, Director, Security & Defence Agenda (SDA)
Nobody doubts the speed with which the security challenges faced by western governments are changing. Nor the changing nature of security. The need for fresh thinking both from the military and from the wide range of relevant civilian stakeholders is clear to all.
And that’s the purpose of the online Security Jam being organised by the Security & Defence Agenda (SDA) and its partners from March 19-23.
Online tools have a central role to play in the effort to address the policy needs of the EU and NATO. The Security Jam is a state-of-the-art collaborative platform that will focus the brain power of thousands of experts around the world on key security issues.
